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connorjdaley's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
I believe I got this from a newsletter and I was stoked to get a holiday read in.
The story is that Zoya, a house squatter, accidentally picks a house that already has someone in it. The someone has been kidnapped…by her own family. Everyone else has just shown up to celebrate the holiday and though she is recently freed from the basement, she doesn’t know who did it to her.
This was an interesting take on a thriller. It features chapters with Zoya, which are third person, but also first person chapters as Viola tries to recall the night that she was taken. It mixes Catholic Christmas with Russian New Years/Christmas, which was cool to see because I never knew there was a difference. As this is one of the most dysfunctional families of all time, Zoya is at the wrong place at the wrong time. Too bad she’s roped into all of this!
Enjoyable, quick, and not without holiday feels. It does get dark though!
Personally a 4/5* for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Death, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment